Valentina

Colors To Eat | Valentina Cirasola | Author and Designer

21 Apr 2014 2 Comments

by Valentina in The Good Life Tags: #BH&GColors, #BritishScones, #ColorEnergy, #RedVoyageIntoColors, #SpringColors, Chromotherapy

(Photo: BH&G)

This flower arrangement I found on BH&G looks perfect for today’s Easter table. It’s cheerful and vibrant and is definitely a resurrection of the spirit from the winter gloom and snow. Every color has healing power. Color therapy techniques have been around for over 5,000 year. Today we call it chromotherapy. It’s roots go back to Ayurveda Indian natural remedies medicine. Decorating a home or office, or preparing food we bring those healing energies from colors into our life and if we use them correctly, colors will enhance our qualities.

Photo sources in this board:
Cup Cakes – http://www.ju-licioustastytreats.com/ – Blackberries – http://ilovemealplans.com/ – Blueberries – www.nipic.com –
Cauliflowers – www.greenprophet.com – Lilac & tea cup – http://www.free-hdwallpapers.com/wallpaper/nature/tea-cup/11991 -Salmon Sashimi – https://goo.gl/qTLyDf –
Round Squash – http://www.oahufresh.com/ingredient/round-squash/ – Limes – http://instiks.com/pin/3740/

Experiment with this color palette, I turned the same flowers arrangement into colors to eat and I came up with food with a perfect healing power. Let’s see what it means to eat nourishing food with these colors and which chakra will benefit from them.

Blue affects the chakra in the throat. As a calming color, blue lowers blood pressure, calms anxiety and helps insomnia. It enhances communication skills and increases will power. Blue food will help de-cluttering the mind from over-driving thoughts.
Orange food will balance too much blue. It’s perfect to serve blackberries mixed with orange slices.

Lavender/Violet is the chakra meditation on top of our head. Wearing violet helps treating mental problems, nervous disorders and tumors. Eating lavender/violet food will lift depression and the sense of disconnection.
Balance violet food with yellow food. When serving lavender tea is best to use lemon and not milk.

Yellow is the color of survival chakra in the upper stomach, or solar chakra. Yellow stimulates concentration and learning abilities, but if the solar chakra is imbalanced will promote fear and anxiety. Yellow food enlivens the solar plexus and reduces stress.
Balance yellow food with blue food. Roasted yellow tomatoes and roasted blue potatoes are a delicious combination.

Orange represents the inner child issues chakra, the sacral or sex chakra, which regulates the metabolism. Psychologically, orange color promotes happiness, increases creativity and socialization. Eating orange food will help curing depression, digestive problems and increase metabolism activities.
Grilled salmon and broiled green squash balance each other well.

Green represents the emotional heart chakra, connected to love, trust and forgiveness. It’s the perfect color for emotional stability and calmness. Eating green food will put you in a calm state of mind, balance the emotions and increase metabolism activity.
Magenta balances too much green.

Let’s transfer the lightness of spring into our food. Enjoy my British lavender scones recipe. I love them fluffy and warm on a breezy spring morning.

Ingredients for 12 scones:

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
½ stick unsalted butter (very cold)
¼ cup sugar 1 teaspoon of dried culinary lavender (fresh lavender is better)
2/3 cup milk
egg wash

Preheat oven at 425° F. Grease and flour a baking sheet. In a mixing bowl mix flour and baking powder together. Add cold butter and make the mixture like breadcrumbs. Mix in sugar and lavender, then add milk to turn the mixture into a sticky dough.
Transfer the mixture to a floured surface or cutting board. With a cookie cutter cut the dough in a thick 1” round disk. Place each disk on the baking sheet previously buttered and floured. Brush the top with an egg wash and sprinkle a small amount of sugar.
Bake for about 12 minutes or until the sconces are golden brown. Serve with candied or natural nasturtium flowers and a home-made orange marmalade.
Bon appetite, I hope your Easter was beautiful and serene. Ciao,
Valentina
http://www.valentinadesigns.com

Valentina Cirasola has been in business as an interior designer since 1990 improving people’s life by changing their spaces. Often people describe her as “the colorist” for a reason. She lives in a colorful world, wrote a book on colors ©RED-A Voyage Into Colors and loves to color her clients’ environments by creating the unusual. Her deep interest in food led her as an autodidact in the studies of food in history, natural remedies, nutrition and well-being, then finally she wrote two books on Italian regional cuisine. Find Valentina’s three books on
Amazon: http://goo.gl/xUZfk0
Barnes&Nobles: http://goo.gl/q7dQ3w

Oranges Landed In High Fashion | Valentina Cirasola | Designer

18 Apr 2014 9 Comments

by Valentina in Friday Fashion Tags: #AdrianaSanatanocito, #EcoFriendlyFashionDesign, #EnricaArena, #OrangeFiber, #RedVoyageIntoColors, #SustainableFabrics, #SustainableFashion

Did you ever think that oranges could be made into clothing? We live in amazing time for technology and how it can help us simplify our lives and sustain our environment. Here it is my Friday Fashion discovery of this week and I could not be happier. Playing with food seems to make people happier and this idea of Orange Fiber is even practical.

About the inventors and how Orange Fiber came about: “Our adventure started 2 years ago in Milan when we were finishing our studies and sharing a flat. We met every night for dinner to share our dreams: Adriana wanted to become a fashion designer with an innovative and sustainable product and I wanted to work in sustainable development and social entrepreneurship. There we were, 2 Sicilian girls living in Milan dreaming to change the world starting from their homeland…and all of a sudden Orange Fiber came to our mind: what if we could use citrus products to create a textile? Sicily is rich in citrus products but every year more than 700.000 tons of industrial waste is produced in Italy from citrus transformation. We wanted to re-use this byproduct to catch the ongoing revolution in the fashion industry: sustainable fashion.

(In the photo: Two businesswomen “Orange fiber”: Adriana Santonocito and Enrica Arena on Lucifer Vocifero Magazine)

Adriana started to study how to create a textile from organic biomass and specifically from citrus for her dissertation. She tested her hypotheses in the lab of Politecnico in Milano and patented the innovation. We developed a process to enrich the sustainable textile with natural oils releasing vitamins on the skin of everyone wearing the textile”.♢ (from Orange Fiber website).

Using nanotechnologies to fix essential oils in the textile, the inventors made a product consisting of functional clothing that can contribute to the consumers’ well-being, integrating the daily vitamins requirements just by wearing the clothes, as the textiles made by extracting cellulose from citrus fruits release active principles directly on the skin. So far they have developed and tested a prototype using citrus essential oils with high values of vitamin C. However the product can release vitamins A, C, and E upon contact with skin, all from the natural citrus oils that are embedded in the fabric.

(photo from: www.today.it)

Hats off to the entrepreneurs Adriana Santanocito 35 and Enrica Arena 27 for their vision, which led to the invention of Orange Fiber. This is a true revelation, a new material that combines innovation and responsibility toward the environment. Their fashion project focuses on the creation of innovative sustainable fabrics and clothes blending two Italian excellences: textile industry and citrus cultivation.

I shall be waiting for their sustainable orange fabrics to reach the interior decorating as well, scented fabrics that we can use in beautiful modern spaces and that will bring their sunny Sicily in every home. Ciao,
Valentina
https://valentinadesigns.com/services#fashion-services

Valentina Cirasola is a trained Fashion and Interior Designer, working in the USA and Europe. Born in Italy in a family of artists, style surrounded her since the beginning of her life. Her many years of experience led her to offer consultations in both specializations and now she can remodel homes as well as personal images. To better help people in the world, she offers consultations online. She is the author of three books. Get your copy of Valentina’s book on colors: ©RED-A Voyage Into Colors on
Amazon: http://goo.gl/qNxXrB
Barnes&Nobles: http://goo.gl/q7dQ3w

Monument | Valentina Cirasola | Author and Designer

15 Apr 2014 6 Comments

by Valentina in The Good Life Tags: #1500sFashion, #DisfidaBarletta, #ItalianHistory, #PugliaTravel, #RedVoyageIntoColors, http://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_photo_challenge/monument, ItalyTravel, WordPressPhotoChallengeMonument

This week WP photo challenge comes at the right moment, in fact next month I will lead a group of tourists to Puglia, Italy where among many places we will visit the monument in the town of Barletta that represents the challenge between the French Army and the Italian Army in 1503. http://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_photo_challenge/monument

The monument is a wine cellar, better a tavern as it was called then, where boisterous soldiers would get refreshed with wines and after a few drinks their abilities to fight was challenged with offensive words that most often ended up in a fight. Two kings from France and Spain, Louis XII of France and Ferdinand II of Aragon, signed the treaty of Granada under which they agreed to equally share the Kingdom of Naples. The treaty apparently didn’t spell out clearly the terms for both armies occupying the same territory, thus created hostilities between the two armies. They always broke out in small fights on the interpretation of the treaty that would best suit them.

Disfida di Barletta – Tavern

Reenactment of the Challenge

1500 Fashion in Barletta – Reenactment Feb.13

(Some of the photos are courtesy of Proloco Barletta)

Sometimes, instead of fighting in the open field, they resorted to challenges in the field of chivalry, often held in the town of Barletta. On Feb.13, 1503 the most important fight between the French Army and the Italian Army serving under the Spanish crown decided the future of the territory. Thirteen Italian knights and many French knights fought a chivalrous duel resulting in the winning of the Italians led by Ettore Fieramosca. Today, every year on Feb.13 the reenactment of that historical event comes alive and the town of Barletta experiences life in the 1500 century, tastes food of the era and admires beautiful fashion parading down the road.

In May I will take my traveling group to visit the tavern and inhale the flavor of chivalry, when honor was the most important thing. Ciao,

Valentina
http://www.valentinadesigns.com

Valentina will host two trips a year to Italy with the intention of showing Italy with the eyes of a designer born in those parts and let people experience the ”wheel of emotions” don’t even know exist. She will take her groups to the non-commercial Italy, areas not beaten down by massive tourism. Valentina will guide the tours through art, architecture, food, shopping and special adventures organized for people who want to live it up!
Check out her books on
Amazon: http://goo.gl/xUZfk0
Barnes&Nobles: http://goo.gl/q7dQ3w

Things That Changed Me| Valentina Cirasola | Author and Designer

12 Apr 2014 2 Comments

by Valentina in The Good Life Tags: #EnglandTravel, #EuropeTravel, #LondonCoventGarden, #RedVoyageIntoColors, ItalyTravel, London

I don’t know what triggered the memory of London trip to come to my mind this week, but it was sweet and nostalgic. I arrived in London in the early ‘80s all dressed up like an Italian model, constricted in the latest fashion trend dictated in Italy, soon to find out that London is about freedom of expression. Something I was not familiar in Italy, my homeland. If fashion for instance says this year the color black is in fashion, like an army of obedient soldiers, everybody will wear black whether it looks good or not, then black will show up even in home accessories, kitchen ware, (I hated the black plates when they were indeed in fashion), bathroom and bed linens, illumination and everything else.

Man in Chain

Minstrel

Street fashion

Passerby

Street rules

Bobbies at Carnaby St.

Street rules

Pub

In London all this doesn’t exist, everyone wear what they want. Carnaby St. was the center of revolutionary fashion from Mary Quant’s mini skirt we are still wearing today 50 years later to the underground music of the Rolling Stones when they played at Marquee Club and where the swinging London lived fun days. I shopped in Carnaby St. and got rid of my traditional clothes forever!

I was pleasantly enthralled with the street life and entertainment I had never seen in Italy up to that moment, except for food markets. At Covent Garden, the man in chains was really intriguing. In a minute time and without anybody’s help he untangled himself from the chains he had wrapped around his body. Street players and minstrels filled the air with fun, laughs and madrigal music from ancient England. Life in London was much more colorful in my eyes than the life I was accustomed to in Italy. Oh, how I loved the freedom in London!

Nowadays in Italy many things have changed, there are a lot of street events, entertainments, art exhibitions, music, flea markets, you name it they have it. The city administrators have realized that creating street events would increase store sales and help growing the economy, thus copied our neighboring countries and made their own street fun.

Back in England, one night at 11:00 o’clock, I crossed on a pedestrian zone with a red light. All of the sudden I heard the whistle of a Bobbie who scolded me for crossing with the red light. Where did he come from? The street was deserted, I was the only one there. I did it many times in Italy even in the traffic and nobody cared, I could not understand why I deserved a ticket and a ticket I received.
Upon my return home, trying to tell my co-nationals in Italy to respect city rules, to respect city vegetation, learn to eat different food, or dress to suit own personality was a huge undertake.

I traveled England by sleeper train from London to Scotland stopping at major places. Going toward Scotland, I fell asleep passed my stop and I didn’t get off at Inverness. When I woke up the train was at a full stop in a station.
I didn’t know where I was, for sure I must have ended up in the wrong place, I thought. The train keeper came and offered me breakfast. I was at the last station where I needed to be, they let me sleep for a while and then woke me up with breakfast of my choice. I was mesmerized of the gentle treatment I received from British people.

The England trip opened up my mind. It was my first time visiting an Anglo-Saxon country, up to that moment I had traveled in Mediterranean countries similar in customs to mine, where life is laid back, tomorrow is a better day, rules are merely suggestions and dressing up, no matter how beautiful and elegant it may be, it is always very constrictive. I was forever changed and I welcomed the changes.
What experience changed you? Ciao,
Valentina
http://www.valentinadesigns.com

Valentina will host one or two trips a year to Italy with the intention of showing Italy with the eyes of a designer born in those parts and let people experience the ”wheel of emotions” don’t even know exist. She will take her groups to the non-commercial Italy, areas not beaten down by massive tourism. Valentina will guide the tours through art, architecture, food, shopping and special adventures organized for people who want to live it up! Check out her books on
Amazon: http://goo.gl/xUZfk0
Barnes&Nobles: http://goo.gl/q7dQ3w

An Evening In Indigo Blue | Valentina Cirasola | Author and Designer

31 Mar 2014 6 Comments

by Valentina in The Good Life Tags: #BonnieSmith, #BonnieSmithIndigoBlueArt, #FabricArt, #IndigoBlue, #OliveHydeArtGuild, #RedVoyageIntoColors

Artist Bonnie Smith

Thoughts of the Mind, Interpretations in Indigo

Some evenings are for learning, some evenings are for socializing and some others are for walking in the imagination of an artist to feed my mind. I met Bonnie Smith, fabric artist, through a friend and soon got interested in her fabric creations. Artists hardly do something for no reason at all, or for the pleasure of doing it. The roots of an art creations often hide other motifs than what a viewer might be interpreting.

I walked in a stark white, minimalist room at the gallery Olive Hyde Art Guild in Fremont, Ca and found a strange entanglement of blue strings. Curious and not knowing what all the blue indigo ropes hanging on the walls and sitting on the floor meant, I was compelled to ask for my learning. Modern art is hard to understand without the guide of the artist and without knowing the thoughts, the pain, or joy behind it. This art installation has a touchy personal story, something the artist shared with me in a short interview.

Bonnie: “I was raised in a small town of about 300 people in the East of US. My parents bought a beautiful property and moved there, but we had no idea we were one of the select religious group, I can freely say we are Methodist. As time passed we realized the local people would not let us buy their produce, strawberries, eggs, things they had in front of their house for sale and when we showed up to buy, they would say: “may be another day”, or “eat your dinner over there”….. It went on for a long time and didn’t get any better. Then, I remember we became members of the church and when I was baptized in that church life became easier. One day someone tapped my mother on the shoulder to invite her to the house and allowed us to buy eggs. My parents lived there for 30 years before they left. It sounds very silly, but this is where all this (referring to her art installation) comes from without realizing I had been carrying this weight with me all my life and it has affected my mother a lot for so many years. When I created this art, I explained it to my parents, 84-85 years old this year, but they just didn’t want to talk about. They are still affected by those episodes.

One day, a friend came over while I was playing around with blue indigo, she said the material felt so good in her hands and something in me just clicked. For six months I did nothing but dyeing 60,000 strings and 400 feet of cotton rope in blue indigo. It became an obsession without even knowing where I was heading. Then my youngest daughter asked me what was wrong with me using all that blue, since I don’t even like blue and never wear it. I actually started crying at that point. I explained to her that the blue reminded me of those workers’ clothes, their overalls and the jackets they wore. This is my story of these pieces. My husband created the round disk to hang them up. By the time I finished working, I realized it represents the “Tangled Web Of Thoughts” and I thought the large rope on the floor is my mind understanding as an adult”.♢

I thought the chair with the straight, jagged lines together with the blue color is well representing that stiff society and the uneasy “blue time” Bonnie grew up in.

It’s fascinating how an episode of one’s young life can stay trapped in the soul for years without any consent and then one day explodes in a form of art, finally liberating that person of all the pains.

Exhibit dates are March 16 – April 26, 2014. Where will this indigo blue go from here and will be situated as the artist intended it? Ciao,
Valentina
http://www.valentinadesigns.com

Valentina Cirasola is an Italian interior designer in business since 1990. She is passionate about colors and all expressive arts. She is a “colorist”. To her, selecting art means to bring out the best energy of her clients and nourish their soul. She is the author of her book on the subject of colors: ©Red-A Voyage Into Colors available on
Amazon: http://goo.gl/xUZfk0
Barnes&Nobles: http://goo.gl/q7dQ3w

Floral And Tribal | Valentina Cirasola | Designer

28 Mar 2014 5 Comments

by Valentina in Friday Fashion Tags: #2014Makeup, #2014SpringFashion, #FloralFashion, #RedVoyageIntoColors, #SamRollison, #TribalFashion, 2014Vogue, Altuzarra

This Spring and Summer we are jumping back in ‘60s fashion when flowers and tribal prints seemed to have disappeared in the hippies’ era. People are migrating and the world is moving all around us. We perceive a far away race, its food, colors or traditional tribal symbolism more exotic than our race and we want to wear its flavors. Primitive art, street art, graffiti, and cubist influence it’s all mixed in this season of Spring.
Flowers are for men’s fashion as well. Hawaiian shirts, color block, graphic art have been seen in all runways from Paris to New York.
It feels like the great escape to the end of the earth or just the escape from our daily reality.

divyanshi-verma-A3TAQ_KpP0k-unsplash

Photo: Divyanshi Verma – Unsplash

Makeup is whatever you like it to be: heavy, as the thick ‘80s-style eyeliner, or lite to create a soft and natural look, discreet minimalist look or even a boyish look.

I don’t know how much of this extravagance we will see in the streets, but just like everything else, it is a matter of proportions.
Large flowers or bright colors that sit on a large derrière are not appealing.
A long dress on a short person is dreadful.
Thick heels and chunky shoes make a woman with large calves look very stocky.
A heavy makeup during the daytime is a sign of vulgarity.
Heavy tribal jewelry is OK for the office.

Fantasy in our wardrobe doesn’t hurt. Ultimately fashion must serve the purpose of making us attractive, youthful, à la page and tastefully smart. Ciao,

Valentina
https://valentinadesigns.com/services#fashion-services

It’s my hope that through my writing I am enriching your aesthetic sensibility towards design, style and inspire you to live in beauty. I have loved my profession as a fashion- interior designer since my beginning of time.

Check out my latest book on colors ©RED-A Voyage Into Colors, available on
Amazon: http://goo.gl/qNxXrB
Barnes&Nobles:http://goo.gl/q7dQ3w

Colors Of Barcelona | Valentina Cirasola | Interior Designer

22 Mar 2014 6 Comments

by Valentina in Home Designs Master Tags: #BarcelonaColors, #ColorEnergy, #InteriorColors, #InteriorDesign, #RedVoyageIntoColors, #RelaxationColors, Barcelona

Ah Barcelona….! The city of dancing colors, as I call it. I was there last year between Thanksgiving and Christmas, it was cold, but the amazing colors of the city knocked off the winter darkness from me and made me feel warm inside. Color, style and funky shapes are everywhere. As I am approaching to return, I can see the colors all over again enveloping me in their warm sunny light.

(Click on each photo to view it larger).

The undulating building Architect Antoni Gaudí designed are the quintessential of extraordinary, a precursor of his time who was much criticized for his outlandish ideas of conceiving buildings. Nobody had built anything like that before him and nothing compares to the art of Antoni Gaudí. He left an invaluable and astounding patrimony the world admires breathlessly. The city is happy, colors affect people and their life. They are up all night strolling the streets, eating and drinking through the small hours of the night and I have not found one rude person there!

Every nuance of color has its own taste. The greens are luxuriant, the blues echoes the sea and sky, the reds and the purples are juicy like strawberries and plums. Nothing is dull. In this kind of environment is hard not to live in full colors. If I ought to have a flat in Barcelona, I would decorate it exactly as I made my color scheme palette, modern in style, hip and funky.

(Photo credit is given to each owner of each piece of furniture seen in my board above)

I would use all the colors of energy in the kitchen, dining, great room, and living; I would reserve the colors of relaxation, blues and the greens in bedroom and baths; I would paint in beige, cream and light browns all transition areas, study, and library, but when I get to my home office I would treat it a funky way to make each working day pleasant and playful.

What do you say? Can you handle all these colors throughout the entire home? Or after a while, you would need a detached house to get away from the energy of all these colors? Ciao,
Valentina
http://www.valentinadesigns.com

Valentina Cirasola is an Italian Fashion-Interior Designer working in the USA and Europe since 1990. Often people describe her as “the colorist” as she loves to color her clients’ world and loves to create the unusual. “Vogue” magazine and many prominent publications in California featured Valentina’s work. She also has made four appearances on T.V. Comcast Channel 15. Author of three published books, the latest ©RED – A Voyage Into Colors is on the subject of colors.
Amazon: http://goo.gl/xUZfk0
Barnes&Nobles: http://goo.gl/q7dQ3w

Slimming With Skinny Jeans | Valentina Cirasola | Designer

21 Mar 2014 4 Comments

by Valentina in Friday Fashion Tags: #ColoredSkinnyJeans, #OldNavySkinnyJeans, #RedVoyageIntoColors, #SkinnyJeans, #SpringFashion, #ValentinaInteriorsDesigns

Women like skinny jeans, we look good and slim in them. I hope they will be here for a long time.
Can everyone wear them? With a bit of “savoir-faire” everyone can wear them.

Skinny jeans are perfect for the office. Choose a dark color that will give you crisp look, but nothing distressed that will give you a look of sloppiness. Choose jewel tones, blue dark green, or black to wear with a tailored blazer. If you have curves, especially around the hip, choose to wear a longer blazer, a trench coat, or an asymmetric sweater to cover the hip and make you look really sharp.

(Good Length) – (Photo: Polyvore)

Black skinny jeans are for any occasion, from morning shopping at leisure to the office, to a night out, or weekends. The skinny jeans have nothing really special, other than being slimming but the secret is in the hem, which should touch your ankle bone and not being bunched up in that area. Having the skinny jeans hemmed up properly will elongate the figure and then wearing the right shoes will give you that look of “casual finesse”.

(Sloppy) – (Photos found on VanityFair.it)

Hide the parts of the body that are a bit strong and emphasize the beauty or the best parts. If the legs are plump and the derrière full get a larger size skinny jeans and wear them with a tunic, oversize shirt or a longer jacket. Color skinny jeans are also very fun. Old Navy Rockstar Jeans has many colors to choose from.

(Absolutely Not) – (Photo found on http://imageresize.club)

However, the rule applies as always: bright colors on large hips will make them seem larger. Ciao,

Valentina
https://valentinadesigns.com/services#fashion-services

Valentina Cirasola is a trained Fashion and Interior Designer, working in the USA and Europe. Born in Italy and in a family of artists, style surrounded her since the beginning of her life. Her many years of experience led her to offer consultations in each specialization and now she can remodel both home and personal images. She is the author of three books. Get your copy of Valentina’s book on colors: ©RED-A Voyage Into Colors on
Amazon: http://goo.gl/xUZfk0
Barnes&Nobles: http://goo.gl/q7dQ3w

Inside | Valentina Cirasola | Author and Designer

17 Mar 2014 2 Comments

by Valentina in The Good Life Tags: #CrepeCafé, #RedVoyageIntoColors, #SanFranciscoCrepeCafé, #SanFranciscoTravel, Inside, WordPress Weekly Challenge: Inside

Have you ever tried to see the world in a different direction, upside down or side way? Inside of a room we see our world from the ground up, but what happens if you stand on a table and look at the world from the ceiling down? The perspective will change and so will your horizon.
Last summer, my teenage nephew visiting from Italy and I went to a crêpe café in the city. He had never seen a shop like that before where the crepes are made in front of the customers with their favorite ingredients. The aroma inside of the shop coming from different iron cooking plates was sweet and the waiting was a torture.

While my nephew was watching intrigued by the ability of the people filling and churning the crepes every 3 minutes, I looked up and I saw the customers projected on the reflective ceiling.

There you go, my world in that moment was upside down inside of a crêpe shop and minutes later was inside of a sublime crêpe, poetry for the mouth. Carpe diem! The small pleasures in life are unforgettable, mine came inside of a triangle of small delights. Ciao,
Valentina
http://www.valentinadesigns.com

Thank you for stopping by and reading my feature today. I hope through my blog posts to bring some entertainment and some insights in my busy life, my cooking and everything else I do. Even with my limited time off, I still like to have fun.
Check out my books on
Amazon: http://goo.gl/xUZfk0

Barnes&Nobles: http://goo.gl/q7dQ3w

New French Style | Valentina Cirasola | Designer

14 Mar 2014 10 Comments

by Valentina in Friday Fashion Tags: #BillCunningham, #FrenchFashion, #ParisFashionWeek, #RedVoyageIntoColors, #TheNewYorkTimes

I love to watch Bill Cunningham’s short videos, he is a fashion photographer/reporter for the New York Times. He gets us inside the fashion industry and in 2 or 3 minutes he reveals a world of secrets.
During the last fashion week in Paris, he noticed there was an explosion of colors and expressions of diversity among the guests going to the fashion shows, even among people coming from countries where freedom of expression is repressed.

In his 60+ years of going to the Paris Fashion Week, Bill Cunningham has noticed a change in the way French women dress today. They had been known as stylish women, who didn’t go to extremes to be noticed. The adoption of simple lines, conservative style and attention to details is what made French women stylish. Apparently, it is no longer that way, French women are showing a little more freedom in the dress choice, adventure with the combination of odd colors and an unusual extravagance by wearing an evening gown in the daytime. Wow! So, if they get so highly decorated during the day, what do they wear when they go to an important evening event?

Perhaps, this is possible just during the Fashion Week and this is possible because it is Paris, but I don’t really think French women go the buy grocery at the street market, or taking kids to school dressed in evening gowns.

This expression of elegance in the daytime would not be possible in California for sure. California is the land of freedom of expressions in any sense and a very loose region in any sense. Friday is called “casual Friday”. Gosh, I have the impression of dealing with a bunch of people that just came out of the gym or their bed. Banks and stores are full of employees badly dressed and that looseness affects their manners as well.
Feeling good in well-made, stylish clothes pushes the wearers to have elegant manners, the two things are related, I have no doubt about this. Ciao,
Valentina
https://valentinadesigns.com/services#fashion-services

Valentina Cirasola is a trained Fashion and Interior Designer, working in the USA and Europe. Born in Italy and in a family of artists, style surrounded her since the beginning of her life. Her many years of experience led her to offer consultations in both specializations. Valentina offers design consultation online through Skype line and in person. She is the author of three books. Get your copy of Valentina’s book on colors: ©RED-A Voyage Into Colors on
Amazon: http://goo.gl/qNxXrB
Barnes&Nobles: http://goo.gl/q7dQ3w